The Foreign Service Journal, May 2011

M A Y 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45 That evening, my glass of wine was breathing, and by our appointed date time, I was but a click away from our Skype call for an unusual but still very enjoyable date night. That experience was a revelation for me. I realized that the prepara- tions we had made had been proper in some respect, but had in no way truly set me up for this year. I thought that moving across the country from San Francisco, buying a house in our old neighborhood and returning to familiar territory would somehow make the transition smooth. On My Own… While I cannot deny that those steps helped, I failed to grasp just how much I would truly be on my own. I had endured experiences in the past with long temporary-duty assignments, as well as Peter’s three years on the Secretary of State’s protective detail, so I thought that I had it all mapped out. But I suddenly had zero time to myself, the kids’ birthdays began coming around, the house was not shaping up as I planned, and I began to stress about Peter being over there. Originally, I hadn’t planned to send our son Nicholas to Montessori instruction so soon after relocating across the country and moving into a new house, though we hoped he would eventually go to the same school his older sisters Caitlin and Kelsey had attended. But it quickly became clear that he had no interest in unpacking, beyond strew- ing his toys around as many rooms as possible. At the same time, his sisters needed to get out of the house and spent their time at nature camp, animal camp and the pool. When they were able to help, it wasn’t the kind of “get Nicholas out of the house and exhaust himwhile hav- ing fun” help that I truly needed. I finally realized this and sent off a quick e-mail to Cait’s old school. Within a week, I had registered Nicholas for five days a week. That instantly freed up three hours a day for exercise, unpacking, naps (I was av- eraging only four or five hours of sleep per night), grocery shopping or whatever needed doing that Nicholas just wouldn’t enjoy. The pangs of guilt I initially felt dissipated as soon as I realized that he was fine at Montessori — and that I simply had no other way of having time to myself during the day. Hitting Our Stride A mere four weeks after Peter left home, Cait’s birthday came around. A few days before the big day, she mentioned that her only wish was to have her father cele- brate it with her. I was at a loss, as I knew there was no way he could physically be with us, or eat the birthday cake with her. It was now Peter’s turn to save the day. He remembered seeing slices of cake in the cafe- teria and snagged one just before leaving dinner that night. He then set his alarm for 4:30 a.m., which would nicely jibe with our celebration. As soon as the Skype call went through, Peter surprised Cait not only with the cake, but also with a candle for his piece. We sang to her, everyone blew out their candles—and we checked another “How do we?” item off our list. A few weeks after school started, I thought we were fi- nally hitting our stride. Not everything was perfect, but af- terschool activities began to pick up, friends were being made and we were enjoying our first Virginia fall in years. Then, out of the blue, Little Guy — as we affectionately called Nicholas — changed. In retrospect, I suppose the process had actually started in early September, but I’d brushed it off then. But after Cait’s choral activities ramped up to include an extracur- ricular performance choir and voice lessons, things really spiraled out of control. Nicholas became unruly and unhappy, and seemed con- stantly exhausted. Waking him up for school was a chal- lenge at best. Meanwhile, the choir was demanding a lot of Cait (and would soon require four hours a month of my time), as well as quite a bit of money. After desperately trying (and failing, as she was too ex- hausted) to get her to a mandatory Saturday practice, I re- alized that we were just all drained. It was too much stress in a year that already had taken a lot out of us all. So we po- litely declined the choir position at the end of the trial pe- riod. Within a week, Nicholas had nearly returned to his much happier self, as his nighttime schedule had been de- pendent on Cait’s practices. (She had started to make new friends in the choir, but was also overwhelmed by the large commitment.) We had weathered yet another unaccom- panied tour storm and, by that point in time, the first week F O C U S The problem was not Peter’s absence, but my lack of understanding that our lives could still work — just not the same way.